FILED Appellate Case: 07-4062 Document: 01015121207 Date Filed:United 09/12/2008 States CourtPage: of1 Appeals Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH September 12, 2008 Elisabeth A. Shumaker UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Clerk of Court
TENTH CIRCUIT
MELVIN DUMMAR,
Plaintiff - Appellant, v. No. 07-4062 WILLIAM RICE LUMMIS; FRANK W. GAY, II and ROBERT C. GAY, as personal representatives of Frank William Gay, deceased,
Defendants - Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF UTAH (D.C. NO. 06-CV-66-BSJ)
Stuart L. Stein, The Stein Law Firm, Albuquerque, New Mexico, for Plaintiff - Appellant.
Randy L. Dryer (Gordon L. Roberts and James T. Blanch, with him on the briefs), of Parsons, Behle & Latimer, Salt Lake City, Utah, for Defendant - Appellee Lummis.
Peggy A. Tomsic (Eric K. Schnibbe, with her on the briefs), of Tomsic & Peck, Salt Lake City, Utah, for Defendants - Appellees Gay.
Before MURPHY, HARTZ, and GORSUCH, Circuit Judges.
HARTZ, Circuit Judge. Appellate Case: 07-4062 Document: 01015121207 Date Filed: 09/12/2008 Page: 2
This case, like several before it (as well as a few books and an Academy
Award winning film),1 concerns the estate of the late billionaire Howard Hughes.
Plaintiff Melvin Dummar has long maintained that he is entitled to a portion of
the Hughes fortune, having been named an heir in a handwritten document (the
Holographic Will) purporting to be Hughes’s will. A Nevada jury found the
Holographic Will invalid in 1978. But Mr. Dummar filed a new suit in the United
States District Court for the District of Utah in 2006, alleging that Defendants
William Rice Lummis and Frank William Gay deprived him of his inheritance by
conspiring to cause the jury to reject the Holographic Will. His amended
complaint (the Complaint) asserts four claims against Defendants: (1) fraud, (2)
violation of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO)
statute, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-68, (3) violation of Nevada’s RICO statute, Nev. Rev.
Stat. §§ 207.350-.510, and (4) unjust enrichment. He contends that absent
Defendants’ wrongdoing, the jury would have found the will valid, and he would
have inherited $156 million. For relief he requests $156 million, with interest
dating back to 1978, treble damages, punitive damages, costs, and attorney fees.
1The books include Geoff Schumacher, Howard Hughes: Power, Paranoia, and Palace Intrigue (2008); Gary Magneson, The Investigation: A Former FBI Agent Uncovers the Truth Behind Howard Hughes, Melvin Dummar, and the Most Contested Will in American History (2005); and James R. Phelan & Lewis Chester, The Money: The Battle for Howard Hughes’s Billions (1998). The movie is Melvin and Howard (Universal Pictures 1980).
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The district court, ruling that Mr. Dummar’s claims were barred by issue
preclusion based on the 1978 judgment, dismissed the Complaint. Exercising
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm the dismissal. As we will explain,
the fraud and federal RICO claims are each time-barred, the Nevada RICO claim
fails to state a claim, and the unjust-enrichment claim is barred by issue
preclusion.
I. BACKGROUND
A. The Complaint
The Complaint alleges the following facts:
Late in the evening, sometime during the last week of December 1967,
Mr. Dummar was driving through rural Nevada. When he pulled off the road for
a rest stop, he saw a bloodied and disheveled man lying in the road. Mr. Dummar
woke the semiconscious man and offered to take him to a hospital. The man
instead requested to be driven to the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Mr. Dummar complied, and during the ride to Las Vegas the man identified
himself as Howard Hughes. After leaving the man at the Sands Hotel,
Mr. Dummar had no contact with him.
Hughes died in 1976. Shortly after Hughes’s death, a stranger2 delivered an
envelope to Mr. Dummar at the gas station in Utah where he worked. The
2Before the probate trial the stranger was identified as LeVane Forsythe, a “confidential agent” of Hughes. J. App. at 17 (Compl. at ¶ 10).
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envelope was addressed to the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints (the LDS Church). Steaming open the envelope, Mr. Dummar found
inside a three-page, handwritten document purporting to be Hughes’s last will and
testament. The document listed him as a 1/16 beneficiary of Hughes’s estate.
Mr. Dummar delivered the envelope to the LDS Church, leaving it on a
secretary’s desk.
In April 1976 the LDS Church delivered the Holographic Will to the Clark
County District Court in Las Vegas, Nevada, for probate. A trial ensued to
determine the will’s validity. Mr. Dummar was an in-court proponent of the will;
several relatives of Hughes, including Defendant Lummis, opposed it. Although
the Holographic Will named Mr. Lummis a 1/16th beneficiary, he stood to gain
more from intestate succession. Defendant Gay, who was the Chief Operating
Officer of the Hughes entities for the period surrounding Hughes’s death,
“worked together” with the opponents of the Holographic Will. J. App. at 15
(Compl. at ¶ 5). At trial Mr. Dummar testified about giving Hughes a ride; the
opponents of the will, however, introduced testimony that for a period of years,
including December 1967, Hughes never left his hotel. Each side presented
testimony from a handwriting expert. On June 8, 1978, the jury rejected the
Holographic Will.
Nearly 30 years later Mr. Dummar obtained information regarding
misconduct related to the trial. He learned from a pilot that on various occasions
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before December 1967, Hughes had flown to locations in southern Nevada to
investigate sites for a terminal for supersonic jets and to visit brothels. The
flights were arranged by Howard Eckersley, a close aide of Hughes and employee
of Mr. Gay. During late December 1967 Eckersley had the pilot take Hughes to
visit a prostitute at the Cottontail Ranch at Lida Junction in rural Nevada. While
waiting for Hughes at the brothel, the pilot fell asleep; when he awoke, he was
told that Hughes had left alone. The pilot then returned to Las Vegas without
Hughes. Some months after this incident, he accepted an executive position with
a company owned by a friend of Hughes. Before the pilot left, Eckersley ordered
him to turn over his flight logs and company records so that all references to
Hughes as his passenger could be removed. The pilot then signed a nondisclosure
agreement, which he honored until recently.
In addition to the information from the former pilot, Mr. Dummar has
learned (or perhaps only inferred—the Complaint often omits when the
information was received and who the source was) the following:3 (1) after the
Holographic Will was delivered for probate, there was a meeting of aides close to
Hughes in which it was decided that all would testify that Hughes never left the
Desert Inn Hotel, where he lived, for years at a time; (2) Mr. Gay and
Mr. Lummis bribed and threatened the aides to testify falsely; (3) top aides,
3We provide a complete list of Mr. Dummar’s allegations of wrongdoing, although we are not able to determine the relevance of certain accusations to this action.
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including Eckersley, did testify falsely that Hughes never left his hotel during the
period in question; (4) Mr. Gay himself testified that there was a “possibility” that
Hughes left the Desert Inn, but he denied any actual knowledge of such a
departure; (5) high doses of codeine contributed to Hughes’s death, and
Defendants were “involved in” the destruction of boxes of empty codeine vials;
(6) a member of the jury successfully campaigned to be elected foreperson by
using typewritten notes that he claimed to have prepared at home from his
handwritten trial notes, thus “irrevocably taint[ing]” the verdict, id. at 27 (Compl.
at ¶ 33); (7) after the trial a reporter was threatened and warned not to interview
this juror or investigate the reasons for the probate verdict; (8) there was a pattern
of threats, including of bodily harm, against witnesses who were to testify for
Dummar; (9) the opponents of the Holographic Will paid more than $100,000 for
expert testimony on handwriting; and (10) it is “understood” that the jury
foreperson had his debts at Hughes’s casinos forgiven, id. at 31 (Compl. at ¶ 41).
B. District Court Proceedings
Mr. Gay and Mr. Lummis each filed a motion under Fed. R. Civ. P.
12(b)(6) to dismiss Mr. Dummar’s Complaint. They raised several grounds for
dismissal, including issue preclusion arising from the probate judgment, time bar,
and failure to state claims entitling Mr. Dummar to relief. Mr. Dummar
responded to both motions. After a hearing the district court granted the motions
on the ground of issue preclusion. Mr. Dummar’s motion for reconsideration was
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denied. He now appeals. Defendants argue that the district court was correct to
dismiss the claims on issue-preclusion grounds but argue alternatively that the
dismissal can be affirmed on the other grounds that they raised in district court.
II. DISCUSSION
“We review the district court’s grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion de novo,
accepting all well-pleaded allegations as true and viewing them in the light most
favorable to the plaintiff.” Lane v. Simon, 495 F.3d 1182, 1186 (10th Cir. 2007).
We may “affirm a district court decision on any grounds for which there is a
record sufficient to permit conclusions of law, even grounds not relied upon by
the district court.” Weitzel v. Div. of Occupational & Prof’l Licensing of Dep’t of
Commerce of Utah, 240 F.3d 871, 876 (10th Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks
omitted). We address each of Dummar’s claims in turn: fraud, federal civil
RICO, Nevada civil RICO, and unjust enrichment. Our choice of the ground on
which to affirm says nothing about the merits of other possible grounds.
A. Fraud
Defendants argue that Mr. Dummar’s claim for fraud is time-barred.
Neither party has suggested whether Utah or Nevada law should apply to the
fraud claim, but we need not decide between them. The laws of the two States are
similar in all relevant respects, so the choice of law would not influence the
outcome.
In Nevada,
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[F]raud must be proven by clear and convincing evidence as to each of the following elements: (1) a false representation made by the defendant; (2) defendant’s knowledge or belief that the representation is false (or insufficient basis for making the representation); (3) defendant’s intention to induce the plaintiff to act or to refrain from acting in reliance upon the misrepresentation; (4) plaintiff's justifiable reliance upon the misrepresentation; and (5) damage to the plaintiff resulting from such reliance.
Albert H. Wohlers & Co. v. Bartgis, 969 P.2d 949, 957–58 (Nev. 1998).4 Utah’s
elements, though phrased differently, are in substance the same. See Gold
Standard, Inc. v. Getty Oil Co., 915 P.2d 1060, 1066–67 (Utah 1996). In
particular, each State requires a false representation, which, under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 9(b), must be “state[ed] with particularity.” The only false
representations alleged by the Complaint to have been made by either Defendant
(or, rather, caused to have been made by Defendants) are the statements by
Hughes’s aides in depositions and at trial that Hughes never left his Las Vegas
hotel during late December 1967.
A three-year limitations period applies to fraud claims in both Nevada and
Utah. See Nev. Rev. Stat. § 11.190(3)(d); Utah Code Ann. § 78B-2-305(3). In
4Although Bartgis and other Nevada cases state that the defendant must have intended for the plaintiff to rely on the misrepresentation, Mr. Dummar points to one case, Ries v. Olympian, Inc., 747 P.2d 910 (Nev. 1987), in which the court allowed a plaintiff to bring an action for fraud based on a court’s reliance on a false representation. We need not address Defendants’ argument that this portion of Ries was dicta or is no longer good law in Nevada, because even if Nevada law applies, and even if Mr. Dummar may state a claim for fraud in Nevada based on the jury’s reliance on the false statements, such a claim is barred by the statute of limitations for the reasons that we proceed to set forth.
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both States the cause of action accrues upon “the discovery by the aggrieved party
of the facts constituting the fraud.” Nev. Rev. Stat § 11.190(3)(d); Utah Code
Ann. § 78B-2-305(3). The question then is when Mr. Dummar discovered “the
facts constituting the fraud.” If the answer is apparent on the face of the
complaint, this issue may be resolved on a motion to dismiss. See Aldrich v.
McCulloch Properties, Inc., 627 F.2d 1036, 1041 & n.4 (10th Cir. 1980); Jablon
v. Dean Witter & Co., 614 F.2d 677, 682 (9th Cir. 1980).
Defendants argue that Mr. Dummar discovered the facts constituting the
fraud in 1978, when he heard the deposition and trial testimony. Mr. Dummar, in
contrast, contends that discovery did not occur until he learned of the existence of
the pilot, less than three years before filing the Complaint. Before then, he
asserts, it was not “clear” that Defendants had committed fraud at the probate
trial. Aplt. Reply Br. at 9. Mr. Dummar does not explain why the fraud became
clear only when he learned of the pilot, but we will address the two possibilities
that come to mind.
First, Mr. Dummar may be suggesting, as he did before the district court,
that he did not know that the man in the desert was Hughes until the pilot
provided him with confirmation of the man’s identity. But even the pilot’s
account was not uncontrovertible evidence—why believe the pilot but not the man
in the desert? “Discovery” in this context cannot mean possessing greater
certainty than one ordinarily needs to take important action, such as initiating
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litigation. Before learning of the pilot, Mr. Dummar not only had the word of the
man in the desert but also the appearance of the Holographic Will eight years
later. If the man in the desert was not Hughes, then Mr. Dummar’s account of
Hughes’s agent showing up at Mr. Dummar’s gas station several weeks after
Hughes’s death with a handwritten will bequeathing him millions of dollars would
make not the slightest sense. So certain was Mr. Dummar that the man was
Hughes that he was an in-court proponent of the Holographic Will during a
lengthy probate trial. Accepting the Complaint’s allegations as true, it is apparent
that by 1978 Mr. Dummar had “discovered” the falsity of any statement that
Hughes had never left his Las Vegas hotel during late December 1967.
Second, Mr. Dummar may be suggesting that he did not discover “the facts
constituting the fraud” until he learned from the pilot that Hughes’s aide
Eckersley had arranged Hughes’s flight to the Cottontail Ranch, because it was
only then that Mr. Dummar knew that someone (specifically, Eckersley) had
knowingly made false statements. But, as explained above, Mr. Dummar had
discovered that those statements were false by the time of the probate trial; also,
he knew that Eckersley was testifying about something that Eckersley claimed to
have personal knowledge of. If more conclusive evidence of fraudulent intent
were required before the statute began to run, then many a fraud claim would be
subject to no time limitation at all. As the Alaska Supreme Court has recognized,
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Evidence of scienter is usually circumstantial, and a defrauded victim will normally have only indicia of scienter before suing. Notice of the scienter element could not require knowledge of conclusive evidence, because conclusive evidence of scienter is rarely available, even through exercise of discovery. If that level of notice were required, the limitations period for fraud would never begin running.
City of Fairbanks v. Amoco Chem. Co., 952 P.2d 1173, 1179 (Alaska 1998). That
Mr. Dummar did not have additional proof of Eckersley’s intent does not mean
that he still needed to “discover” it. The facts alleged in the Complaint
demonstrate that in 1978 Mr. Dummar had all the knowledge necessary to start
the limitations period running against him. Dismissal of his fraud claim was
appropriate.
B. Federal Civil RICO
Defendants argue that we should affirm the dismissal of Mr. Dummar’s
federal civil RICO claim because, among other reasons, it fails to state a claim
and is time-barred. Mr. Dummar has not responded on appeal to their argument
that he has not pleaded essential elements of a RICO claim. Perhaps we could
affirm based on this failure to respond. Cf. Utah ex rel. Div. of Foresty, Fire &
State Lands v. United States, 528 F.3d 712, 724 (10th Cir. 2008) (failure to
challenge alternative holding of district court constitutes waiver). But we choose
instead to dispose of the claim because it is time-barred—an argument that Mr.
Dummar did, at least nominally, address.
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To bring a civil RICO claim, a plaintiff must allege that he was “injured in
his business or property” by the RICO violation. Sedima, S.P.R.L. v. Imrex Co.,
Inc., 473 U.S. 479, 496 (1985). A RICO violation requires: “(1) conduct (2) of
an enterprise (3) through a pattern (4) of racketeering activity.” Id. (footnote
omitted). A pattern of racketeering activity requires at least two acts of
racketeering activity. See 18 U.S.C. § 1961(5). The RICO statute lists a number
of crimes that constitute racketeering activity. See id. § 1961(1).
The Supreme Court has held that a civil federal RICO action is subject to a
four-year limitations period. See Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff &
Assocs., Inc., 483 U.S. 143, 156 (1987). Although the Court
has not settled upon a definitive rule for when the limitations clock starts running, it has announced two possibilities: either when the plaintiff knew or should have known of his injury (the injury-discovery rule); or when the plaintiff was injured, whether he was aware of the injury or not (the injury-occurrence rule).
Cory v. Aztec Steel Bldg., Inc., 468 F.3d 1226, 1234 (10th Cir. 2006). In either
case the plaintiff need not be aware of the pattern of racketeering activity. See
Rotella v. Wood, 528 U.S. 549, 553–54 (2000); id. at 555 (even if a discovery
accrual rule applies, “discovery of the injury, not discovery of the other elements
of a claim, is what starts the clock”). It is unnecessary for us to choose between
the two rules today, because it cannot be disputed that Mr. Dummar’s injury and
his discovery of that injury occurred simultaneously, when the jury returned its
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verdict that the Holographic Will was invalid. The limitations period therefore
began running against him in 1978.
Mr. Dummar asserts, however, that “[o]n federal causes of action,
fraudulent concealment is read into every statute of limitations.” Aplt. Reply Br.
at 8. From this we gather that he means to argue, as he did before the district
court, that the limitations period should be tolled because of fraudulent
concealment of the alleged RICO activity. The Supreme Court has recognized
that equitable tolling may be available under RICO, see Rotella, 528 U.S. at
560–61, and we have stated that a RICO cause of action can be tolled by
fraudulent concealment when the plaintiff establishes
(1) the use of fraudulent means by the party who raises the ban of the statute; (2) successful concealment from the injured party; and (3) that the party claiming fraudulent concealment did not know or by the exercise of due diligence could not have known that he might have a cause of action.
Ballen v. Prudential Bache Sec., Inc., 23 F.3d 335, 337 (10th Cir. 1994) (internal
quotation marks omitted). Allegations of fraudulent concealment, like other types
of fraud, must be pleaded with particularity. See Great Plains Trust Co. v. Union
Pac. R.R. Co., 492 F.3d 986, 995 (8th Cir. 2007).
Mr. Dummar has made no attempt on appeal to show that he pleaded the
elements of fraudulent concealment. At any rate, such an attempt would be futile.
To begin with, he has not adequately alleged “successful concealment from
[Mr. Dummar]” of an element of his cause of action. The Complaint lists three
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acts alleged to support equitable tolling: (1) the “actual perjury and misleading
testimony” of Hughes’s aides, (2) the “destruction of evidence in the flight logs
of the specific flights” taken by Hughes and the pilot in December 1967, and (3)
the “ongoing understanding of the employees of the Hughes entities . . . of the
enforceability of the non-disclosure agreements.” J. App. at 31 (Compl. at ¶ 42).
None of these is a sufficient allegation of fraudulent concealment. First, as
explained in the above discussion of the fraud claim, Mr. Dummar had enough
information concerning the perjury to begin the limitations period at the time of
the probate trial; the perjury may have misled the jury, but not him. (We might
add that tampering with witnesses in a state-court proceeding is not racketeering
activity under the federal RICO statute. See Deck v. Engineered Laminates, 349
F.3d 1253, 1257 (10th Cir. 2003)). Second, the alteration of the flight logs
(alleged to have occurred nearly ten years before the probate trial) did not prevent
Mr. Dummar from discovering the falsity of testimony that Hughes had never left
his hotel in December 1967. The alteration may have concealed evidence
corroborating Mr. Dummar’s testimony (such as the information later provided by
the pilot), but it did not prevent him from knowing any element of his RICO
claim. Third, we fail to see what is fraudulent about an employer requiring
employees to sign nondisclosure agreements. Mr. Dummar does not allege that
the agreements required anyone to make misrepresentations of any sort, let alone
lie under oath.
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Even if we were also to consider allegations of wrongdoing not specifically
referred to in the Complaint as fraudulent concealment, we would not find
anything adequately alleging fraudulent concealment. Paragraph 22 of the
Complaint alleges that Defendants ordered, bribed, and coerced Hughes’s aides to
commit perjury. This allegation supports an element of the RICO claim—namely,
that Defendants bore responsibility for the perjury and other misconduct in the
probate proceedings. But there is no allegation in the Complaint, or suggestion
elsewhere in the record, that Mr. Dummar acquired any specific evidence of this
misconduct during the four years before filing the Complaint. On the contrary,
the allegations in paragraph 22 appear to be merely inferences by Mr. Dummar.
Paragraph 19 of the Complaint states that “based upon their positions of control in
[Hughes’s enterprises], their personal involvement in the litigation and trial, as
well as their personal motives and other facts alleged [in the Complaint], Plaintiff
reasonably believes and alleges that Defendants . . . knew of and coordinated [the
aides’] false testimony.” J. App. at 20. We question whether the allegations of
paragraph 22 are pleaded with sufficient particularity to support a claim of
fraudulent concealment; but in any event, the absence of an allegation regarding
how and when Mr. Dummar learned of the alleged misconduct forecloses a claim
that Defendants’ fraudulent concealment prevented Mr. Dummar from discovering
Defendants’ involvement until at least 2002—four years before filing suit. If the
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allegations in the paragraph are based on information acquired only in recent
years, the Complaint needed to assert that.
We also note that paragraph 18 of the Complaint alleges that shortly after
Hughes’s death, a meeting of his aides took place at which they decided that all
would testify that Hughes never left his hotel during the relevant time period.
Affidavits submitted by Mr. Dummar suggest that he learned of this meeting
within four years of filing the Complaint. But neither the Complaint nor the
affidavits say anything about Defendants’ presence at, or other involvement with,
that meeting. Again, Mr. Dummar has failed to explain why he could not have
inferred Defendants’ involvement in the perjury until more than 26 years after the
probate trial.
Not only has Mr. Dummar not alleged the concealment necessary to satisfy
the second element of a claim of fraudulent concealment, but he has also not
alleged the due diligence necessary to satisfy the third element. See Ballen, 23
F.3d at 337; Klehr v. A.O. Smith Corp., 521 U.S. 179, 194–96 (1997). The
Complaint is completely silent as to any efforts that Mr. Dummar made to
uncover his cause of action during the first 26 years after the probate trial.
Mr. Dummar did not show entitlement to equitable tolling, and his claim is
therefore barred by the civil RICO limitations period. Dismissal of this claim was
proper.
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C. Nevada Civil RICO
Mr. Dummar claims that Defendants are liable for his damages under
Nevada’s civil RICO statute. See Nev. Rev. Stat. § 207.470 (civil damages
provision). He alleges that they engaged in three predicate offenses: extortion,
perjury or subornation of perjury, and offering false evidence—all of which
allegedly occurred before, during, or immediately after the 1978 probate trial.
But Nevada’s RICO statute was enacted in 1983 and requires that at least one of
the predicate offenses have occurred after July 1, 1983: “‘Racketeering activity’
means engaging in at least two crimes related to racketeering . . . if at least one of
the incidents occurred after July 1, 1983 . . . .” Id. § 207.390. Consequently, the
Complaint fails to state a cause of action under the Nevada RICO statute.
D. Unjust Enrichment
Finally, Mr. Dummar asserts a claim of unjust enrichment against
Defendants. Both Utah and Nevada require a plaintiff alleging unjust enrichment
to demonstrate three elements:
First, there must be a benefit conferred on one person by another. Second, the conferee must appreciate or have knowledge of the benefit. Finally, there must be the acceptance or retention by the conferee of the benefit under such circumstances as to make it inequitable for the conferee to retain the benefit without payment of its value.
Desert Miriah, Inc. v. B & L Auto, Inc., 12 P.3d 580, 582 (Utah 2000) (citations
and internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added); UnionAmerica Mortgage
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& Equity Trust v. McDonald, 626 P.2d 1272, 1273–74 (Nev. 1981) (same
elements).
Mr. Dummar’s theory is that Defendants were unjustly enriched when their
actions deprived him of his “rightful inheritance.” J. App. at 28 (Compl. at ¶ 36).
But if Hughes truly died intestate, as the probate jury found, then it was not
inequitable for Defendants to retain the benefit they received from the Hughes
estate, and their enrichment was not unjust. The issue before us, therefore, is
whether the probate jury’s finding has preclusive effect in this case.
Federal courts are required to give the same preclusive effect to state-court
judgments as the originating state itself would give. See 28 U.S.C. § 1738; Allen
v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 96 (1980). We therefore look to Nevada law to
determine whether the probate judgment precludes Mr. Dummar from litigating
the validity of the Holographic Will. In Nevada a party is barred from litigating
an issue previously litigated when three conditions are met:
(1) the issue decided in the prior litigation must be identical to the issue presented in the current action; (2) the initial ruling must have been on the merits and have become final; and (3) the party against whom the judgment is asserted must have been a party or in privity with a party to the prior litigation.
State, Univ. & Cmty. Coll. Sys. v. Sutton, 103 P.3d 8, 16 (Nev. 2004) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
The second and third elements are not in dispute. Mr. Dummar was a party
to the probate proceeding, and that proceeding resulted in a definitive ruling on
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the validity of the Holographic Will and Hughes’s intestacy. Mr. Dummar claims,
however, that the first element—the requirement of identical issues—is not met
because the issue decided in the probate case, the validity of the Holographic
Will, is not an issue in his current action. He asserts that he is attempting in this
action to establish not that the will was valid but, rather, that Defendants’ actions
caused the jury to find that the will was invalid. This argument may have some
merit with respect to Mr. Dummar’s other causes of action, but it is wholly
unpersuasive with respect to his unjust-enrichment claim. Defendants were
unjustly enriched only if the Holographic Will was authentic, and the invalidity of
that will was precisely the issue determined in the probate case. The district court
was correct to give that judgment preclusive effect with respect to this claim.
III. CONCLUSION
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. Defendants’ motion for
sanctions is DENIED. Mr. Dummar’s motion to dismiss the appeal and remand
for additional trial proceedings is DENIED. Finally, we see nothing improper in
the representations of the Gays to this court in their motion for substitution, so
Mr. Dummar’s motions to strike the joint brief and oral argument of Defendants
and for a stay are DENIED. Mr. Dummar’s motion for extension of time to reply
to Defendants’ supplement to their response is GRANTED. Mr. Dummar’s reply
shall be filed as of the date received, July 14, 2008.
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